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Jim Allister’s Comments in Assembly Event to Mark Death of McGuinness

“Every death brings grief and sorrow to the family and friends of the deceased and rightly evokes sympathy for the family. It is no different in the case of Mr McGuinness.

“What is different is that he bears responsibility for many violent and needless deaths in our community. As an IRA terrorist and commander, his hands drip with the blood of the innocent. He goes to his grave having shown no remorse and no regret and having made no apology for the terror that he brought to our streets; rather, he continued to justify the bloodthirsty wickedness that was the IRA campaign.

“Martin McGuinness died on 21 March at the age of 66. On 21 March 1988, a young police officer from my constituency, Constable Clive Graham, died. He was murdered in the Creggan estate by the IRA, shot at a checkpoint. He never got the chance to live to 66, never got the chance to marry his girlfriend of the time and never got the chance to see children and grandchildren. Why? Because a man of blood decided that he would die. That, sadly, can be recited and recounted many times, because Mr McGuinness thought it appropriate not just to sanction and commit murder but to take those dark secrets with him, denying truth and justice to many of his IRA victims. His republican code of silence trumped his every posturing as a peacemaker, meaning that for many, myself included, his abiding legacy is that of a victim maker, as evidenced so chillingly by our graveyards.

“Today, my thoughts primarily are with the many victims of Martin McGuinness’s murderous IRA, and, thus, I come to note the death of Martin McGuinness but not to praise him.”